Medical adhesives can have many uses, including securing wound dressings, medical devices (e.g., catheters) surgical drapes, tapes, sensors, and the like, as well as skin sealant and liquid sutures, etc.
Pressure-sensitive adhesives have been used for a variety of marking, holding, protecting, seating, and masking purposes. Pressure-sensitive adhesive can also be useful in the field of skin or medical adhesives, e.g., for use in wound dressings, or the like. The living, sensitive, low surface energy and highly textured surface of skin can present difficulties in adhesion, and the wide variation in the skin surface from individual to individual and from location to location on the same individual can exacerbate these difficulties.
Although some existing silicone adhesives are attractive for skin adhesion due to their inherent good biocompatibility, low surface energy, low glass transition temperature, and high breathability (e.g., high moisture vapor transmission), those existing silicone adhesives are hydrophobic and thus lack of the capability of fluid management and lack of the compatibility to hydrophilic additives.